World Population Day: 6 Shockingly Hilarious Laws Made To Curb Global Overpopulation

At this point in time, we have close to 8 billion human beings living on Earth. To sustain this large number of people we will need not only one Earth but 1.7 Earths, according to the Global Footprint Network. Overpopulation is one of the major threats to our existence. One might think the more, the merrier, but when the number is so high that it becomes detrimental to our survival, it’s time to push the brakes on this party! 

Human population growth has been exponential. The world population increased from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.9 billion today. This shows the population grew 8-fold in just 220 years. Whereas it took all of human history till 1800 for the population to reach the first billion. This shows the ballooning of our population in a short span of time. 

An estimated 83 million humans are added to the world population, on an annual basis. Painfully enough, the doubling time of the world population, i.e. the number of years it will take for the population to become twice its current size is estimated to be only 61 years. Sounds scary, doesn’t it?

There are multiple reasons that seem to have gotten together to enable overpopulation:

1. Falling mortality rate is the biggest reason. This is all possible because of better health infrastructure and medical services. Global average life expectancy has more than doubled since 1900.

2. Unintended pregnancies and underutilised contraceptives are a big problem. An estimated 44% of pregnancies were unintended worldwide between 2010-2014

3. Roughly 130 million girls worldwide are currently out of school, and an estimated 15 million girls of primary school age will never learn to read and write, compared with 10 million boys. There has been observed a direct correlation between more female education and decreasing fertility rate.

This huge population is bound to have some adverse effects. The ecological and environmental degradation like deforestation, pollution, ozone holes, global warming, etc. Also, increased conflicts over resources like water, land, and energy resources as is seen in nations of the Middle East, Africa, etc.

Furthermore, higher risk of pandemics, primarily because of increased contact with wildlife. This is because humans have destroyed and occupied wildlife habitats on a large scale. The world has also become more vulnerable to disasters. Since we have encroached on environmentally sensitive areas and disturbed the ecological equilibrium. Of course, this led to Increased competition over a limited supply of resources leads to inequality and unequal distribution of these resources. This leads to poverty, hunger, crime, and various other problems. 

Some countries around the world realised that this overpopulation was an impediment to their economical growth and prosperity and to curb this problem, these countries took matters into their own hands and ended up making some laws and policies that are frankly, beyond just funny. 

Funny Policies Made To Curb Overpopulation

1. The Indian Move 

We all are aware of the infamous internal emergency during 1975-1977. During this time, the Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi took some radical steps to curb the population growth. Forced sterilization (vasectomy) was performed on the reproductive population. People were literally picked up and forced to go under a vasectomy or a tubectomy. They literally stole the people’s power to reproduce, so glad this nightmare is over. 

2. The Chinese Policy

Their infamous ‘one-child only’ policy went viral across the globe, the moment it entered mainstream media. According to this, each family is allowed to have only a single child. This was the government doing your family planning without your involvement. They also advertised international adoptions and tried to promote them by making the procedures easier. Ouch. 

Also Read: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar Says Only Women’s Education Can Curb Population. 

3. The Kenyan Idea 

The government in Kenya calls for matching population size with available resources in the country, it’s a set of complicated mathematical calculations which are revised every year. So. family planning in Kenya will surely require you to be an expert in mathematics because it sounds like a puzzle to solve and the prize? You get to have a baby! 

4. The Brazillian Shift

‘These masterminds came up with the ‘Adolescence first, pregnancy later’ campaign. Under this, the government tried to spread awareness about the risks and consequences of teenage pregnancies. They also tried to delay sexual relationships before marriage, So once again, instead of focusing on increasing literacy levels, the government is trying to puppet the love life of its population. Sigh. . .

Also Read: Elon Musk Says Environment Will Be Fine Even If The Population Doubles. 

5. The Singapore Side

The Singaporean government has a very strict two-child policy, where a family can have only two children and this is a proper law, so going against it is punishable. This comes as a hurdle for couples that want to keep on trying to have the perfect family. Sad state of absolute control, huh?

6. The Nigerian Bang

Nigeria’s overpopulation policy seeks to reduce the average number of children to four and restricts pregnancies between the age of 18-35 years with a 2-year interval. The government here is literary trying not only to dictate the reproductive age of women but also officially plan when they ‘can have’ the next baby. Crazy, right?

Do you think policies like these actually work? Huh. . .  can’t help but wonder about the ruckus they left in their wake. Can you? I feel the same way. I don’t understand why countries don’t take global measures to educate their citizens. Make sex education compulsory at the grassroots level and normalise using contraceptive measures. Isn’t that better than this hilarious mess?

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